The Atlanta-based exchange and clearer will licence CSD
indices in North America and Europe from financial information provider Markit to create the contracts, which
will be available in the first quarter of 2013.

“The expansion of the CDS market to futures provides credit
market participants with additional tools for managing credit risk exposure,”
said David Goone, senior vice president and chief strategic officer at ICE.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is in the
process of bringing in new regulation on OTC derivatives trading as part of
sweeping regulatory change under the Dodd-Frank Act.

However, delays and exemptions were announced last week for
reporting requirements relating for high-volume swaps traders, incorporating banks and large asset management firms. Many buy- and sell-side firms are seeking to stay below the threshold defined by the CFTC for becoming major swap participants or swap dealers by using exchange-traded products that replicate swaps exposures on ICE and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

Meanwhile, the CME Group will offer portfolio margining of
over-the-counter interest rate swap positions against Eurodollar and Treasury futures for customers accounts from 19 November to help firms further reduce
risk.

House accounts with CME already have access to this function,
used to reduce initial margining requirements through cross-margining between OTC
rates swaps and rates futures, which lets clients benefit from central
clearing.

“We worked with buy-side clients to develop innovative and
efficient risk management solutions that work for them such as portfolio
margining, deliverable swap futures and real-time clearing,” said Laurent
Paulhac, senior managing director, CME Group, OTC products & services.